


Push and Pull

by Traxits



Series: Silk for Bravery, Gold for Honor [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Comfort, Could be romantic, Gen, or pre-romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 03:56:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6179233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traxits/pseuds/Traxits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katara's driven.  Suki is pretty sure she's driving herself into the ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Push and Pull

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm doing a challenge on my [tumblr](http://traxits.tumblr.com) wherein I have [15 prompts](http://traxits.tumblr.com/post/140484322872/silk-prompt-list) and I'm taking suggestions for ways to fill those prompts with side-fics for Silk. For this particular prompt, I had a request for Katara and Suki. Set before chapter six of Silk. More importantly, it's set before Katara and Suki and Aang really know what's become of Sokka.
> 
> Prompt 13: Exhaustion.

There was no forgetting that Katara was a bender. It punctuated every movement, underlined ever turn of her head and every expression that she made, and every time she trained with Suki's fans, Suki could watch the ocean at work. There was a regular tide to her movements, the push and pull of the water that they flew over day in and day out. Katara also pushed her harder than any of the girls back home had, insisting on drill after drill, and the strangest thing, Suki decided, wasn't actually watching her with the fans. It was that Katara had flat out refused to wear the makeup that was so ingrained in Suki's ritual of battle preparation.

Instead, Katara got out the small kit of grays and blues, white and black, that was presumably her brother's. He was the warrior, wasn't he? The make-up Katara lingered over would have made her look a corpse, but Katara never put it on. Instead, she simply dragged her fingers over it in the earliest hours of the morning, before she thought anyone was up.

After all, it wasn't like Katara slept much these days.

Suki sighed as she got up and started breakfast. Officially, there was no meat while they were on the road. The smell made Aang sick, but Suki had watched the way Katara's eyes glazed over as they flew low over a school of fish last night, and Suki had slipped away on her own just long enough to catch something. She knew Earth Kingdom waters, after all, and while she would never had the careless grace that Katara did bringing something up, she wasn't exactly shoddy at it.

She roasted the fish last, after she'd prepared everything else, and she set it aside, fanning the area with a broad leaf to get rid of the smell. Aang wrinkled his nose as he rolled over, burying his face into Appa's fur, but he didn't wake, didn't protest. Suki counted that as a victory as she wrapped the fish up in more leaves and got it ready to travel.

When they were all settled on Appa's back, Suki watched Katara going through her motions, cycle after cycle, endless and repeating. No water rose to meet her, not from so high, but even Suki could tell that her movements were getting better. The anger, she decided, was pushing her. Coaxing her. Polishing her.

Eventually, she'd be a diamond from all the pressure.

Suki blew out a breath, and she smiled widely. "Katara," she said, and when Katara looked over her shoulder, she patted at the seat next to her. "I have a surprise for you."

Katara stumbled when she moved, and when she sank down beside Suki, the circles under her eyes were so dark that Suki wasn't sure that she hadn't finally broken down and smeared Sokka's war paint across her face.

Then she held up the fish, and Katara's brow furrowed as she took it and started to carefully unwrap it. Her lips parted on a low, wanting noise, and she had peeled half a filet off before Suki had ever noticed her pulling out a knife. Suki snorted her amusement, and she glanced over Appa's side at Aang. He shot her a thumbs up, then rolled into the clouds, shooting ahead to play with Appa and keep him entertained as they traveled. Katara's eyes eased open as she chewed and swallowed that first bite, and it was only after two more that she flushed and looked back at Suki.

"Did you..?"

"Oh, no, I'm good," Suki replied with a chuckle. "It's all for you, Katara. On a condition though."

Katara's fingers twitched, the knife glinting in the warm morning sun, and she bit her lip a second before she nodded. "Right. What is it?"

"Sleep when you're done!" Suki reached over and pulled Katara in close to her, ruffling the Water Tribe girl's hair. "You look like you've been in that make-up you're carting around! Get some sleep. We'll train when we land, and then have dinner, and you can get some _more_ sleep."

Katara tensed against her, but she didn't pull away. Instead, she just peeled another small bite of fish, and she nodded after she popped it into her mouth.

"I'll try," she whispered.

"You _will_." Suki wasn't prepared to take anything less for an answer. "You're no good to us like this." A little smile on Katara's face proved that Suki hadn't been wrong in her observations, and she blew out a little sigh. "Katara," she said, "you're no good to Sokka like this."

Katara's hand tightened on the knife, and Suki shifted just enough to be ready to take it if she had to. But no, Katara just dug it into part of the fish, and she dragged in a breath, then another. A slow nod was all the promise that Suki needed from her on this. She rubbed Katara's shoulder as Katara finished off the fish, and when Aang finally drifted back to check on them again, Katara had, thankfully, dozed off.

Suki tried not to notice the tracks that Katara's tears had left on her face.


End file.
